Pure Heart and Good Intention

Chapter Two

Dean couldn't stop pacing, worry etched across his normally handsome, confident features. He wasn't used to just sitting around and letting things happen. Fighting demons, he understood, could do, and did well, but this, "invisible" demon that Sam was fighting, he had to fight alone, and Dean couldn't do anything to help him. He had no weapon to fight it, and worse yet, Sam was fighting him. What gave him comfort was hearing that their mom's spirit was there with them. Maybe knowing that would help Sam where he couldn't. It helped him to know that his feelings of her presence had been confirmed. It was becoming harder and harder for him to maintain his control over his emotions. He felt completely overloaded.

He heard the door open and turned abruptly to see Esperanza standing there. Her face was sympathetic, but it gave Dean a chill.

"What? What is it?" Dean asked, more urgently than he had intended.

"Sit down, Dean," she said. He did, but his eyes darted around, searching her face for answers.

She sat in a chair opposite him.

"Please tell me what happened," Dean insisted gently.

"I will, but first, I need to do a read of you."

"What? Why?" Dean asked nervously.

"It's vital to Sam that I feel and understand what you're feeling."

Dean paused.

"You told me that you trusted me," Esperanza said.

"It's not you I don't trust," Dean responded nervously.

"You don't trust yourself…you're hiding something, aren't you?"

Dean didn't answer.

"If you want to help Sam, then you can't keep secrets. It's these secrets that will ultimately destroy you both. I can't help you if you can't be open with me."

He nodded, and reluctantly offered her his hands. They were trembling. Demons I can handle, but this…

"Dean, don't be afraid, of me, or of the truth. I already know so much just from your strong presence. You make everyone feel safe and secure just by being there for them."

"I don't feel very strong."

She smiled, "Sam said the same thing about himself, but you both underestimate how strong you are and how much strength you draw from each other."

"Is mom still –"

"She's still here, Dean. Her soul is smiling with pride for the both of you, but right now she's telling me how grateful she is for all you have done for your family. Most of all, for how brave you have been, not only for Sam, but for every innocent you have helped. She needs you to know that you are a good man and that she is proud to call you her son."

Dean almost lost his tenuous control and could only look into Esperanza's eyes. He was afraid to voice his feelings, for fear that once he began, they would never stop.

"You don't have to say anything. She knows how you feel. Now, will you give me your hands?"

Dean nodded, and she took them into hers. They felt cold and she found herself absently rubbing them to warm them up. She then closed her eyes. Despite his cold hands, she felt a wave of warmth fill her. She felt the energy flow through her, purifying her as it ebbed. She felt light-headed and started to fall forward, but Dean caught her.

"Are you all right?" He asked, concerned, as he grasped her shoulders.

"Yes. I was just overwhelmed," She said, feeling more of Dean's emotions come into her, almost soothing her.

"Well, I do have that effect on some people," Dean joked.

Esperanza smiled at him. She admired his ability to cope with so much and still be able to be self-deprecating. Even as worried as he was about his brother, he was trying to keep himself grounded, knowing Sam would need that stability.

"Is there something wrong?" He asked, worriedly.

"No, no, what I felt…it was…strong. It was the purest good that I have ever felt. I felt love, overpowering, unending, for your mother, for your father despite his abandonment, but most of all for your brother. It is the most powerful for Sam…but there's more. You have a fierce warrior spirit, you fight, but you possess so much compassion, Lucas, Michael, Andrea, and Haley all have benefited from your caring nature...you comfort, you battle not only to save your family, but for all wrongs committed against innocence. You have courage…a fearless courage…failure is not an option for you."

Dean looked away, unable to voice the pain he felt for the lives he couldn't save. Esperanza sensed it.

"You can't save everyone, but you try…you try very hard. Your intentions are true and undefeatable. You give everything of yourself to the point of self-sacrifice, if needed. Your singular determination is to make sure as many people as possible are spared suffering at the hands of any evil. I feel that. Your heroism pervades everything. It ebbed through me, that's why the light-headedness."

Esperanza paused. "Everything I felt was exactly as your mother told me. She has good reason to be proud. You are a protector. It's all you want to do, to protect Sam, of course, but it goes beyond him. You think of it as a coping mechanism because of all you have lost, your mother, your childhood, Sam's childhood, but it's much more, Dean. If it were only just that, you would have never have survived as long as you have. You would have been reckless as your father has been, and to some degree as Sam sometimes can be, driven by anger, loss, and vengeance. What you do is more of a mission. Something you were born to do." She paused again. "I understand now."

"What? Understand what?"
"I still don't know what Sam's role will be in this world yet, probably because it is still forming, developing. Thankfully, unlike Max, he has you to keep him on track, to keep him from the darkness, but whatever awaits him, it was something he was born to do, to be. Just as being his protector as well as the champion of others is what you were born to do, to be. Your mother's soul is confirming this."

Dean could only stare at her half-understanding.

Then she got up and opened the door between the two rooms and Sam looked up.

"I think that's enough for today. You need to get some rest. We've covered a lot of ground. Now, of course, I insist that the both of you stay."

"We don't want to impose –" Dean started to say.

"Nonsense, I insist. I have this huge house and no one to share it with. Besides, it might be a good idea to stay close until Sam's better. Sam, why don't you go on upstairs and take either of the first two rooms."

Sam smiled shakily and started walking up the stairs. Dean, still feeling confused by her revelations, headed out to the car to bring in their stuff. Esperanza watched them both and took in a deep breath. Two extraordinary men, she thought to herself. So much love between them, yet so much pain.

oooo

Evening had fallen and Sam was asleep in his room. After Dean had checked up on him, he walked out onto the front porch, unable to sleep, fear and uncertainty seeping into his bones.

Esperanza came out to check on him and felt Dean's fears.

"May I join you?"

"Sure," Dean said.

"How are you holding up?"

"It's not me I'm worried about," he laughed nervously.

She looked at him then sensing something, turned serious.

"Why haven't you told him?" She asked.

Dean turned to look back at her. He was learning not to be surprised anymore and didn't bother trying to hide anything from her.

"He's got enough to worry about."

"Don't you think he should know?"

Dean leaned against the railing.

"I will tell him, but not until he's okay. He just can't handle anymore right now, and I won't add another burden. He'd blame himself."

He recognized the wave of rising pain. He fisted the railing with his hands, and moaned softly. Once the pain passed, he took in a shuddering breath.

"What if I were to tell you he already knows?"

Dean turned, shock in his eyes, "What?"

"Not the specifics, but he's been having visions. Visions of what he fears most. You dying. He hasn't given me details. He's holding back."

Dean felt the weariness finally hit him. Holding back all that tense emotion was eating away any energy reserves he had.

Esperanza looked at him. "You're dying." She said it more as a statement.

Dean sat back down in the chair.

"You're afraid as well, but not of dying. You're afraid of leaving Sam alone, vulnerable."

"Fighting the demon then the car crash left me with muscle damage to my heart." He knew she already knew, but for some reason he felt like telling her in his own words, maybe it was the control freak in him. "My aorta was involved too. I'm going to have chronic pain for the rest of my life and they say that over time, it's going to get worse. There's meds for it, but I don't take them. They dull my senses. Pain has been a part of my life since as far as I can remember. Adding a little more isn't going to change how I deal with it. I just can't be off my game. I have to stay sharp for as long as I can."

"For Sam and those you save."

He nodded.

"The doctors told me that any kind of overexertion or stress could kill me. Hell, this job I do could kill me any time. I've been on borrowed time my whole life so facing death doesn't scare me, but I can't leave Sam the way he's feeling now. There has to be a way to give him the life he wants. I chose this life, but he needs to choose his before I -."

He looked down at his hands.

"I need to know that I won't be leaving him feeling he has to live my life because he'll feel responsible for my death. I don't want to leave that legacy to him."

Esperanza was moved by Dean's reluctant, but earnest, admission.

"The two of you are connected in ways I have never known in all my years reading people. Your bond as brothers goes beyond blood," she said gently.

"All I want is to give him hope, to give him a will to live, give him my will to live, if there's a way to do it."

She looked at him, his mother's pride melding with hers for him.

"Dean, you are Sam's will to live. The only thing that keeps him from moving forward is his fear that he'll lose you. It is slowly paralyzing him. If anything happens to you, if his vision comes true and you die, he will be lost. He will become Max."

Dean looked into her eyes, his welling with tears, but his face etched with determination.

"Tell me how I can stop it."

"The only way is to prevent your death. Sam will be consumed by the darkness without you there to protect him. His gifts are slowly developing, but he isn't there yet and it makes him vulnerable. There is a future for him using these gifts for good, but even I can't see what that future is. It's too far ahead. All I can tell you is that without you to keep him centered, protected, loved, he will allow all the evil that gravitates around him to exert their influence. They all lie in wait for an open opportunity."

"But I am going to die, maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually, if my injuries don't do me in, then some thing we hunt will. As invincible as I'd like to think I am, I know that I'm not."

She smiled. "It's what we all have in common, Dean. Birth and death, the rest is up to us, but because of your importance to Sam's future, you, too, need protection."

"From what? From whom?"

"From death itself."

"Unless you know something that I don't, I can't be protected from that," He said pragmatically.

"There is a way."

"A way to what? To make me immortal?" He joked.

"No, but the next best thing. To make you whole again so that you have a fighting chance, so you can protect Sam, protect innocence," She smiled.
"If you're talking about a healing, I've been there and done that and won't go through it again."

"I'm not a reaper, Dean. I am not Roy, but I do possess more powers than just psychic ability. A healer doesn't steal lives."

"You mean you can…"

"Heal your injuries, yes, but it won't be easy."

"What is, these days?" He joked.

"And it must involve Sam."
"What? No, it can't, there must be another way. I won't ask anything more of him," Dean insisted, afraid of putting Sam through more pain.

"Dean, this also serves a second purpose. He is instrumental to your healing, if it succeeds, it will be the restoration of his confidence. He will have saved you from what he fears."

"And if it doesn't succeed?"

Esperanza didn't say anything.

"Don't answer that," Dean said. "Let's do it."

To Be Continued….